Reflections
by the queen of slurking
Summary: Set after end of Wanted. Aria, Emily, Hanna and Spencer reflect on their lives. Don't read if you haven't read Wanted.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I'm not Sara Shepard, I don't own the Pretty Little Liar series... yada yada yada. You know how it goes. Set after the end of the series, so probably don't read if you haven't read Wanted.**

Reflections

_Aria _reflects on how Ali was super-manipulative, and pretty much a huge bitch. She realizes that before she'd caught Ali and Noel kissing at the dance, she hadn't been planning to go to the Poconos with the others. A decision that, if she'd stuck with it, would have saved her life, but only in the short term.

She thinks about how she wasn't prepared to forgive and forget so easily, and that she should have stood her ground. She is sorry that she weakened so easily-that with just a few well-chosen words, and a sorry expression, she caved in and weakened to Ali.

She considers how Ali sucked them back into her spell-thinking over what an excellent actress Ali really was. Thinking also how sick Ali must have been, beyond what any of them had ever realized. She thinks idly that if she hadn't been so sick, Ali could have made a very successful career of acting-the girl could've been nominated for many awards if not for the desire for revenge that drove her deception.

She remembers the first time she spoke to Ali-or as it turned out to be, her sister Courtney. She was dazzled, sucked in even then. Her desire to fit in conflicted with her inability to do so, having been taught from a young age by her parents that she should be an individual and not just follow along with what everyone else was doing. She wonders if even then, she should have been more resistent to the DiLaurentis charm. After all, Courtney or Ali, both were Typical Rosewood Girls who were worshipped and followed by everyone. She can't really regret that time though, because she is still herself and once she found that niche with the others, she stayed herself and stopped experimenting in trying to find who she really was.

She considers briefly where being involved with the DiLaurentis family led her to-a short time of acceptance and friendship with three other girls who needed a leader and group of friends as much as she did. Then, after that leader disappeared, the threads of the group were torn and frayed, scattering all over the place. Aria moved away for a few years, which worked out well-it was a respite from all the memories and everything she would have wanted to get away from. After returning and starting eleventh grade, she and the other girls began to get stalked. Things turned fatal. Several more people died unnecessarily and she almost did. And now things have done a one-eighty. Things with Noel are really great. Her family is better than it was before, and she now has a new sister.

She recognizes that, sad as it may be, she's better off without Ali in her life. Things are so much better now. With the leader of their group alive, she was intoxicating and wonderful, but that came at a price. That price being the knowledge that Ali knew what no-one else did and had the power to let everyone know. With her dead, things were still not much better: their secrets were still known and some of their secrets were spilled publicly.

She reflects that now that both Ali and Courtney have died-assuming Ali didn't survive the fire in the Poconos, which she most likely didn't-the group is much better without someone manipulating them and lording their secrets over them. No one now has the power, and so no-one is being manipulated or teased.

_Aria_ reflects that as a general rule, almost everything is better off without Alison DiLaurentis in her life.

**Hope you liked it. I'm going to do one chapter for each of the four girls. The next chapter will be up in a few days. Please review, whether or not you liked it. Constructive criticism is welcome but please be gentle. I got the idea from this when I was looking in the mirror (hence the title) and considering how the word reflection has more than one meaning... then I got to wondering what each of them would reflect on and came up with this.**

**Review? :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimed: I own nothing except the storyline and the laptop I'm using to type this out and publish it. You know how it goes. Still has possible spoilers for those who haven't read Wanted.**

Reflections

_Emily_ reflects on how things in her life were so boring before she met Alison. She was a great swimmer, sure, but never really close to anyone. Her swim team friends were kind of default friends-she knew them well because of so many hours spent practising together and travelling to and from swim meets together, but never really spent much time with anyone. Between swimming and schoolwork, she was pretty busy as it was.

She remembers how dazzled she was by Ali when Ali first approached her, and she especially remembers how Ali had mocked her for kissing her-particularly because she had been so nervous about it, and so sure that Alison DiLaurentis could be the love of her life. She wonders if now, she had idolized Ali because Ali was the first to make her feel like she had the potential to be someone interesting and important.

She took all the photos of Ali off her walls and mirror, and is now replacing them with new photos of her with Spencer, Aria and Hanna. She did feel bad about burying all her Ali memorabilia with the pink change purse from Ali, but saw that it was for the best, especially if she was to move on with her life.

She recalls how shocked she'd been when the truth emerged: she wasn't friends with Ali in seventh grade, but her twin sister pretending to be her. She feels a pang of bitterness as she thinks over how successfully Courtney DiLaurentis managed to dupe them all-and not just her, Spencer, Aria and Hanna, but the rest of school. Hell, she duped all of Rosewood and did it all so well. She quickly came to realize that she hadn't been in love with Ali, but her twin. However, that all changed when she saw the _real _Ali.

She wonders now if the reason she came to like the real Ali so fast was because she thought she'd been in love with her all those years ago. Maybe her crush had transferred over from one twin to the next. Or maybe she wasn't sure who she wanted.

She thinks over all the trouble that her friendship with Ali-and Courtney for that matter-brought her and her family. Thanks to Ali and then A, she'd had to try to go a program that would make her 'gay demons' go away, and then been sent to Iowa. This was _after_ A had outed her to the school, and her parents. Thanks to A, she'd messed up things with Maya and broken up with Isaac, who'd accepted her for her.

She realizes that maybe it wasn't all bad. She doesn't like to dwell on the hurt Ali caused in her life, preferring instead to look on the better side of things. Like how she and her old friends were able to reconcile, first out of fear from one A and then progressing to meeting for coffee and creating new memories of the four of them together. After she'd run away from Iowa, her family had made more of an effort to accept her as she was and even tried to get along with Maya.

She thinks that that's another relationship she could try to fix: she could apologise to Maya and they could try to be friends again. She knows the pain of losing a friend and could try to help Maya cope with Jenna's death.

She wonders if Ali and her twin sister were some sort of catalyst for so much happening. Because of one sister's jealousy and the other sister's desire to get back at her, several people had died needlessly, causing pain for their families and friends. They had lost a sister, a brother, niece or nephew, friend or cousin, son or daughter. Toby, Jenna, Ian, Mona. Hanna had come close to death, but recovered.

_Emily _considers how she had had Ali put on a pedestal for so many years and believed nothing but good. Admittedly, it was easy to think of her as the victim: the beautiful golden girl who everyone loved, or loved to hate, and that made the reality of her as the killer a little harder to swallow. It was hard to place the two images side-by-side: the fiction of Ali, beautiful, innocent and blamesless beside the reality of Ali: still beautiful, but scheming and manipulative, someone who was so hungry for revenge that she could be driven to such horrible acts. She thinks that without Alison DiLaurentis, her life is easier somehow.

**And there you have chapter 2. Hope you liked it. I'm going to do my best to get the next chapter up soon, but I'll be impressed if I manage to have it written by the end of the week. One Anthropology essay, a Classics essay and a Physics test to study for, are not conducive to writing fanfiction. I'd love reviews or any suggestions you might want to make. This only has two more chapters though-I don't want to drag things out longer because then ideas would run dry and it'd change the way I want it to be somehow.**

**Reviews would be lovely :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimed. Spoilers still a possibility if you haven't read Wanted.**

Reflections

_Hanna _reflects on how dazzled she was by Alison back in seventh grade. She thinks over how much she wanted to be Ali: beautiful, smart, fun, and adored by everyone. She thinks over how stupid it had been of her to pray for coolness every night, and recognizes that it wasn't her prayers, but hard work, that gained her popularity. She realizes how stupid it all was to pray for something so trivial, especially when she considers how fast popularity and the Queen Bee status can come unravelled. With just a few words, a choice picture or dirty looks, the Queen Bee can quickly fall from the top rung to somewhere average.

She remembers that she was happy when Ali complimented her on something she was wearing, that day of the charity drive, and realizes that she was perhaps at her most superficial back then.

She considers how much of a bitch she was at times: going along with Alison's schemes, doing her dirty work, and not even caring when Ali ditched Naomi and Riley. True, the rest of the school had also wondered and speculated, but no-one had thought to ask. She thinks maybe something could have been done differently back then, but doesn't dwell on it.

She cringes when she remembers finding out the truth-the fact that she wasn't originally friends with Alison but her twin sister Courtney. She realizes this would be part of why Riley and Naomi had been ditched: because it wasn't really the same girl. It was Courtney DiLaurentis, obsessed with taking over her sister's life, who had ditched them and taken four girls into her group.

She does feel a pang of guilt when she remembers how she saw an opportunity. Ali had been missing for months at the beginning of eighth grade, and there was no-one there to really obstruct her path to popularity. Mona wanted popularity too, and together they worked their way to the top. Rulers of the school, setting new trends, having the latest fashions before anyone else-for two years, it had been great. She remembers wishing Ali was around to see her transformation. She wished Ali could see her as she is now: pretty, skinny, without the glasses and braces, and with good hair. She wishes now that these little things weren't what had made her popular.

She thinks of all she got from having Ali in her life. For a while, things were good, but that was when Ali wasn't taunting her about her weight. She realizes that she probably never had been all that cool in seventh grade, and that she was overshadowed by Ali: a little like how the average lightbulb would be overshadowed by a spotlight designed to highlight one specific person. The lightbulb couldn't compete. While the spotlight brightened the area and one or two people got to stand in it, the lightbulb gave off a weak light that everyone else could stand in. She thinks that she was probably cool by association, not cool in her own right. It was only after Ali disappeared that she really began her transformation. She had some pedigree from having been friends with Ali, which helped, as did the new clothes, new hair and everything else she worked on.

She thinks about how well she was deceived by both DiLaurentis sisters and how well they both deceived everyone in Rosewood. She regrets how she found out that 'Courtney' was actually Ali pretending to be her, and wishes she hadn't treated it like the plotline of a mystery novel.

She remembers how she felt when she realized the truth in the Poconos, and sometimes she wishes she'd never been friends with Ali. Other times, she's grateful that she had been friends with her. Ali had been the glue that stuck them all together, but when she disappeared, the glue had dissolved. She remembers sometimes feeling like a puppet, being expected to go along with Ali's ideas and suggestions, while knowing that Ali-and Courtney-both knew things that she didn't want anyone to know. She wonders sometimes if she would've put her foot down and refused to do something Ali wanted to: what would've happened? She admits that Courtney probably would have told everyone everything and ruined any chances of popularity that she ever had.

_Hanna_ considers that it took her years to accept herself. She realizes now that popularity is not the only important thing in life. She feels some sympathy for Naomi and Riley, knowing that their Queen Bee status could come undone as quickly as hers had, and counts herself lucky that she learned some important life lessons.

**Kind of a weak ending, but I found Hanna hardest to write. Hope you liked it okay. I'm still trying to rename my other PLL fanfic, if you've got any suggestions I'd love to hear them. **

**Please review :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimed. Still might have spoilers if you haven't read Wanted.**

Reflections

_Spencer_ reflects on how she felt back in seventh grade when Alison first spoke to her. She remembers feeling surprise that Ali knew who she was, and that she knew her by name. She was the only one too-where Ali asked if she was Spencer, the others had to introduce themselves to Alison. She remembers wanting to steal the flag, to show Ali that she wouldn't always have things handed to her on a silver platter.

She thinks about how she was sucked in so thoroughly, and feels a pang of guilt for feeling relief when Ali disappeared. She thinks over how stunned she was to figure out that she and Alison were sisters, and then later, finding out that Ali had had a twin, meaning now that Spencer had three sisters. She remembers how it felt realizing that she had lost her sister as well as her friend.

She wishes she'd known that Ali had a twin, especially if they were all sisters. She remembers Melissa saying she knew about the twins, but almost no one else did. She wonders what she would have done if she'd known about the hidden twin. Would she have continued to live her life, knowing that she had a sister in the hospital, or tried to reach out to her sister? She thinks about how she never knew about the blood relationship between her and Alison, and tries to understand how the thought never occurred to her.

She remembers the slight sense of relief she felt when Alison went missing: relief, that no one else knew her secrets and that no one else could know, unless she told them. Until A came along and threatened to tell all, that is. A would have too, if Spencer had given the bait for her to do so-after all, A demonstrated what she could do in telling someone's secret, both with Emily and Aria. She thinks about the consequences of A's actions both times, and wonders if maybe it was for the best. Things worked out okay in the end: Aria's parents split, which surely was better than living a lie, and Emily's family made more of an effort to accept her for her.

She thinks about having Ali in her life. Things might have been at their best then, even with the knowledge that Ali knew almost everything about her. Before she'd been adopted into Ali's clique, she'd been there, but not standing out much. She was well liked, but often living in Melissa's shadow. Being in with the most popular girl in school was the ticket to standing out, and she was more her than when she was being compared to Melissa. She was smart-always had been-but got eclipsed by others who stood out just that little more, those who got A+ grades when she got an A.

She wishes she'd been able to stand up to Ali more, and take the lead from time to time, but is grateful that she didn't. She remembers what she found out in the Poconos and counts herself lucky that she never angered Ali to the extent that Courtney had. If she had, she too might have been buried years ago, having been killed by her sister.

She considers the effects Ali had on both their families-and, for that matter, several other families around Rosewood. Families split up, friendships and relationships damaged, people killed needlessly. She finds it slightly ironic that Aria, Emily and Hanna are probably thinking the same thing. Despite the subtle differences each of them had in the friendship with Ali, they would all probably think some of the same things.

_Spencer _reflects on how ironic it is that it took years of fighting and competing with Melissa, then several months of stalking and a few near-death incidents courtesy of her other sister, before she and Melissa began to get on better.

**This chapter is the last one in this story. Hope you liked it.**

**I'm already working on another story kind of like this, and a few one-shots. And of course, my favourite PLL story I'm writing, That Night.**

**Constructive criticism, advice and suggestions all welcome.**

**By the way, if you're reading this, it means I am back at university, which means more updates in about all my stories. Or, faster updates anyway.**


End file.
